Didn't they tell us don't rush into things?
by Killaurey
Summary: Sakura is trapped in her own mind and would like to wake up now. Or, an exercise in absurdity. And fairytales. And The Twelve Days of Christmas. AU. KakaSaku. A one-shot with several chapters.


Title: Didn't they tell us don't rush into things?  
Chapter: 1 - Down the Rabbit Hole  
Author: Killaurey  
Rating: T  
Word Count: 7244  
Summary: Sakura is trapped in her own mind and would like to wake up now. Or, an exercise in absurdity. And fairytales. And The Twelve Days of Christmas. AU. KakaSaku. A one-shot with several chapters.  
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. Unbeta'd.

* * *

Sakura wakes up, still in her jammies, in the snow. It drifts down languidly from the sky to land on her eyelashes and nose. She's surrounded by it and it's the softest, fluffiest, prettiest snow that she's ever seen.

She should be freezing but she's not the slightest bit cold.

Sakura assumes it's a dream, so that makes sense—as much sense as dreams are ever supposed to make anyway—and sits up marvelling at the beautiful dreamscape her imagination has given her to play in. Just for fun she tosses a handful of snow into the air and laughs delightedly as it floats back down on her, softer than the softest of butterfly kisses.

Rather than melting, the flakes just shiver off her when she moves, and Sakura amuses herself for a few minutes longer by throwing more and more handfuls just to have them float back down and leave her white-covered and ridiculous looking.

Sakura stands up, brushing the snow off of her and it comes off in easy flakes to land gently where she'd laid. She leaves it in her hair because it's soft and pretty and she's feeling childish which is okay because this is a dream of hers and if she can't be childish in her dreams then life is _totally_ unfair in every aspect. She wishes for slippers-not because she's cold but because it seems too strange to walk without them-and they appear in front of her, cementing her opinion that this is a dream.

Wriggling her feet into the slippers, which are a pink more shocking than her hair, Sakura looks around. In the north, there are trees. In the south she can see nothing but a plain of snow. To the east and west there's just more snow. She debates with herself for all of three seconds before heading north. If there are trees then maybe she'll find something that's interesting there. The snow is fun but that can't be all there is to this dream.

She walks for what feels like hours and yet only tires her like minutes (so not at all) and all the while she walks, snow continues to drift down in floaty tendrils. Sakura sticks her tongue out and when it lands on her tongue it's shockingly cold and wet, like she's swallowed an entire glass of ice water. When it touches her skin, though, it's as comfortable and fun as ever.

Sakura tries to figure out why and eventually just gives it up as a lost cause and having something to do with the fact that, in her dream, it's clearly anything goes. Which is all right. Besides, it would feel weird if snow wasn't cold and wet when it landed on her tongue. For fun she scooped up a handful and took a bite of that. Same thing, wetness and cold as she swallowed even though her hand remained unfrozen and dry.

It makes her laugh for no reason and she's still laughing when she comes across the first tree. There's a bird of some sort perched up in it and the tree is heavily laden with pears. Under the tree a younger Kakashi-sensei is sleeping. Sakura steps over to him, careful in her slippers to not wake him if he doesn't want to be woken.

Her caution proves to be for naught as, once she gets beside him, she can see that he's holding an apple with a single bite taken out of it.

Sakura doesn't know half as many fairy tales as Ino does-Ino has always been far more into them than she has-but she recognizes this one. Only true love's kiss can wake the sleeper now. Either that, she thinks, or the apple piece gets dislodged from his throat by moving him. Sakura is pretty sure that she's heard variations of both stories and it all depends on the teller. Some versions are darker.

She stares down at the sleeping Kakashi. If he's the princess in this scenario, does that make her the prince? Or is there another person in her dream who is the real prince? Is she just an imposter? Sakura looks around, unsure if she should try anything, before giving into curiosity and pressing fingers lined with green chakra to Kakashi's neck.

The chakra tells her that there's nothing lodged in his throat which knocks out about half of the stories she's heard about this particular scenario. Sakura picks up the apple.

Pulsing her chakra through it gives her no idea what could be wrong with it. As far as her chakra is concerned, there's no poison at all. Nothing but a normal apple with a single bite taken out of it.

Sakura glances at Kakashi.

That probably means that true love's kiss is supposed to be the cure. This is awkward because she's entirely doubtful that she's his true love or that he's hers.

She hasn't really believed in true love since she offered Sasuke everything and he thanked her, knocked her out, and left the village.

All of that leaves her incredibly skeptical that anything involving a kiss is going to wake someone up. But still, she reassures herself, it's just a dream.

If it doesn't work then there's no one around but her to know.

And if it does... there's still no one around to know.

Sakura leans over and kisses Kakashi. She doesn't remove his mask, as that seems like a horrible violation of his privacy, even in her dreams (she can remember a time when she thought it was a game to try and get his mask off; growing up has taught her that that is a wrong thing to do) and the mask makes his lips feel... well... spandex-y.

Not at all sexy.

But as she pulls back, holding her breath, his eyelashes flutter. He cracks open one eye, the one that's not covered by his hitae-ite and looks at her bemusedly.

"My prince, I assume?" His voice practically drips amusement.

Sakura flushes to the roots of her hair. "This is just a dream," she tells him. "Besides, there's no story saying that I can't be the princess waking the prince up from being stupid enough to eat a poisoned apple given to him by his wicked stepmother while she's disguised as a witch."

Kakashi laughs lowly and stands up carefully. He's taller than her, even though she's almost certain they are about the same age in this dream scape. Sakura sulks a bit about that.

If this was her dream, she thinks, wouldn't it make sense that for once she'd be taller than him? Metaphorically or something?

While he tries to get his bearings, Sakura reaches up and the branches of the tree they stand under conveniently lower so she can pluck a pear off of them. Sakura bites into the pear and watches Kakashi.

He's certainly not acting like her one true love, she thinks, as he decides there's no immediate threat and pulls out a familiar orange book.

"Seriously," she says, after swallowing, "is this really the time to read porn?"

Kakashi doesn't bother to look up from his book. "Is there a reason it wouldn't be a good time to read it?"

This stumps Sakura.

Truthfully, the answer is no. Sure they're stuck in her dream-he's probably just a figment of her imagination anyway-but there doesn't seem to be anything harmful here and even the snow is comfortable and her jammies are more than warm enough. Her slippers are there only for comfort, not for warmth.

"Well, no. But seriously, I just woke you with true love's kiss," she says, coming perilously close to whining, "so you'd think you could pay a little bit of attention to me or something."

"Or something."

"You're being a jerk, Kakashi-sensei."

He just shrugs.

Sakura resists the urge to punch his stupid face in and, with another bite of her pear, marches away from him and the tree heading further north. There's got to be something more to this dream, she tells herself, because if that's all then she's going to wake up screaming with frustration about Kakashi-sensei ruining a perfectly good dream of... a whole lot of snow.

Snorting a laugh, even she thinks that's ridiculous, Sakura trudges onwards. It takes her a bit before she realizes that Kakashi hasn't followed her. This sours her mood all over again and as the pear tree with the bird in its branches disappears from sight, Sakura resolves to forget about him and his stupid love's kiss and tells herself that if he's stupid enough to take another bite of a poisoned apple then she's just going to let him remain in an eternal sleep and see if she cares.

* * *

The sky slowly turns blue and even with the blue sky the snow keeps falling down. Sakura covers her mouth and yawns. It's hard to say how long she's been walking. She has the vague impression that it's been days or even weeks but she's only a tiny bit tired and when she thinks about that it seems like she's only been walking maybe an hour at most.

Looking up at the sky reminds her of Ino's eyes. Maybe that's why, when she comes across Ino sitting with two turtledoves in her lap, she's unsurprised.

"Pig."

Ino opens her eyes. Like Sakura had thought, they match the sky. "Forehead."

"So what am I supposed to do here?" she asks. "I'm not going to have to kiss you, am I?"

The way her subconscious is going, Sakura wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.

"Not hardly," Ino scoffs. "You _wish_ you were good enough to kiss me."

" _Hey._ "

Ino bursts out laughing. The turtledoves ruffle their feathers and shuffle closer together in Ino's lap, clucking their disgruntlement. "I'm almost sorry that I've got to let you go on if you get things right," Ino says, laughter lighting up her entire face. "I like talking to you."

"So glad I can amuse," Sakura says dryly, a smile tugging at her lips. "You're the ultimate brat though. I can't compare to you."

That just earns her a shrug. Ino has always been good at admitting what she is.

"Anyway," Ino says and holds up a glass slipper. "This is your next task."

Sakura takes the slipper tentatively. It is icy cold and slick enough that she's worried about dropping it as she cups it in both hands. "You've got to be kidding me," she says. "Don't tell me I've got to find the guy that this slipper fits?"

"How else are you going to find your love?" Ino asks, looking puzzled and wickedly amused. "By just meeting and talking to one another? Oh Forehead, you always were the romantic. To fall in love you've got to do these deeds. It's the only way."

"You're definitely a figment of my imagination," Sakura replies. "Ino-the real one-would never say that."

"I can only follow the script," Ino says, a bit apologetically. "I can't really help anything else."

"My dreams need help," Sakura mutters and shakes her head. "Okay, so where are all the guys I've got to convince to try this thing on?"

Ino lifts one hand and points behind her. "Onwards, Forehead. You've got to go that way. If you fail, you'll see me again for another round. If you succeed, well, you're well rid of this section. Probably not rid of me entirely though."

"Wish me luck?"

Ino does and blows her a kiss as Sakura walks past her, clinging to the slipper so that it doesn't fall, and looking for the people she's supposed to have wear it. She hopes that this doesn't follow the true story, which would involve cutting their foot to make it fit.

Because a) ew and b) that's cheating.

When she comes up to the pear tree with Kakashi and the partridge talking to one another, Sakura sighs and holds up the slipper. "I'm pretty sure this is yours."

Kakashi doesn't even bother to look at her. He just lifts one foot.

Sakura scowls at him. "So not happening," she says.

"Haven't you read any fairytales?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"I know the fairytale," she snaps. "I'm still not shoving a slipper on. If you want to be my Cinderella then you're going to have to try the shoe on yourself."

"How," Kakashi asks, "are you supposed to fall in love if you don't go through the motions?"

Sakura scowls at him. _Harder._ "Love isn't about going through motions! It's about feelings!"

He studies her curiously. "Do you really believe that?"

Sakura opens her mouth to say of course she does, but when she speaks, nothing comes out. Furious, Sakura tries again.

"See?" Kakashi says. "If you really had conviction, you'd be able to say the words."

She doesn't know what to say to that, and isn't sure if she's going to be allowed to say any of her retorts about his underhandedness, so Sakura stays silent and tries to murder him with her mind.

Oblivious—or rather, deliberately ignoring—the danger that he's in, Kakashi lifts his foot again. "My slipper, please."

Sakura chucks it at him.

The glass slipper disappears before it ever touches him.

"I see," Kakashi says, sounding a bit sad. "You'll have to go on then. There's nothing else for you here."

Then he closes his eyes and sinks into the pear tree. The birds twitter their confusion and Sakura just _stares_ in disbelief until her temper subsides. Then she peers around the tree.

In the far distance, she can see what looks like another tree.

Sakura begins stomping towards it, still in a foul mood. Who was he to even suggest she wanted to fall in love? Maybe she didn't! But either way it wasn't really about going through the motions, right?

Even just to herself the words ring hollow.

Halfway to the next pear tree (she's assuming, anyway, that it'll be pear) Sakura stumbles upon Ino, laying out on a beach towel, wearing a super cute bikini and painting her nails. The fact that there's snow everywhere doesn't seem to bother Ino.

(But then, it's not bothering her either.)

Without so much as a by-your-leave, Sakura collapses onto Ino's towel. Ino obligingly wriggles over so there's room for both of them, and passes Sakura a bottle of sparkly white and silver nail polish.

"Bad day?" Ino asks carelessly.

"I've had worse," Sakura admits grudgingly. "I'm just in a bad mood. This is really pretty."

"You can keep it," Ino says generously. "It'll suit you more than me, I think."

Sakura studies the nail polish and has to agree. "Thanks. What did you buy this one for, anyway?"

"Had a party to go to," Ino explains. "It was winter-themed. I went as a literal ice queen."

"Was there a prize for best dressed?" Sakura wonders. "I bet you won it."

Ino's smug smile answers that. Of course Ino won it.

They talk and giggle for maybe an hour, maybe a few hours, and Sakura finds her bad mood trails away even though, for some reason, she never gets around to asking Ino the questions she wants to. Instead, she paints her nails with the polish, admiring the way the sparkles throw off light, they share all the latest gossip, Ino tells her funny stories about Team 10 out on missions, and they make plans for a trip to a real beach, come summer.

Sakura is almost dozing, her shoulder resting companionably against Ino's, when Ino says, "It's probably time for you to move on, Forehead."

"Do I have to?" Sakura asks, rubbing her eyes and giving the pear tree in the distance a dismaying look. "Kakashi's going to be a pain."

"You need to try a little harder," Ino scolds her, shoving her shoulder gently. "Even if you think he's talking nonsense, give it a go."

"If I do, does that mean I'll get answers from you later?" Sakura asks.

"Maybe?" Ino says, shrugging and picking up her trashy romance novel. "I can't see the future."

Sakura sighs and hauls herself to her feet. She hands the nail polish to Ino. "Can you keep this safe until I'm done?" she asks.

Ino smiles up at her. "You got it. Go and knock it out of the park."

"There is no park here," Sakura points out, but she leaves Ino with a laugh, which is much better than how she left Kakashi.

As she walks away, she realizes that Ino hasn't given her anything to use with Kakashi. She mulls over that until, almost like magic, she realizes that she's right in front of him, and the pear tree, and the birds, all over again.

"I'm starting to get really tired of this," she says, planting her hands on her hips. The soft, fluffy snow that had so entranced her hours (days?) ago is now more of a nuisance. Though she supposes she should be grateful that it's not also cold.

Sakura sighs. Deeply.

Kakashi sits under the tree-and is it the same tree or a different one? they all seem to be the same sort of tree, at the very least-and watches her calmly.

He says nothing.

At least he's not reading his porn again.

"What story is it this time?" she asks, scowling. "More lessons on true love?"

This is a sick, unfunny game her mind has dreamed up and when she gets out of it, she is going to make sure she never, ever dreams this again. How, Sakura hasn't quite decided, but surely Ino could find a way.

"Not when you sound like that," Kakashi replies mildly, reaching now for his book. "You need to learn patience. Temperance."

Sakura's temper seethes as she clamps her mouth shut on the retorts she wants to give that.

"See? You're already learning."

Her temper fizzles and pops. "I don't want _any_ lessons to love!" Sakura shouts. "I don't understand why you keep winding up as my princess, I don't understand this stupid fairytale hell that I'm stuck in, I don't understand why any of this is even necessary! Just get out of my head! I don't need the lessons."

Kakashi doesn't even bother to look up. He turns to the next page. "The fact that you think you don't need them," he said, "just means that you need them even more."

Sakura begins deeply reconsidering her vow to never, ever hit her precious people outside of training and _mean_ it. "I don't _want_ the lessons," she says, leaning over and getting right up in his face. "I don't _need_ the lessons. You can take them and get the hell out of my mind."

He meets her gaze and smiles faintly. "I'm sorry, Sakura," he says, "but I'm afraid that I can't."

She straightens up. "Why not?"

"That's confidential."

Her eyes narrow. "This is _my_ dream. I say what's confidential or not."

"You know that's not always true." Kakashi sighs and puts his book away, muttering about not even being able to read with her around. "Look, your lesson this time isn't on love. Why not try and deal with that and just... take it one step at a time. And ask Ino next time you see her. She might know more."

Sakura glowers at him for a long moment. "Ino's going to be more help than you are," she informs him.

"Probably," he agrees.

"Just letting you know." Her voice is flat. She struggles with herself for a minute. "So what do I have to do to learn patience?"

Kakashi reaches into his pocket and pulls out a... cocoon. "Watch this," he says, handing it over to her. "It'll open up eventually."

She gapes at it. "You're seriously telling me I've got to stick around here until this thing becomes a butterfly?"

"I didn't make the rules," Kakashi notes. "I just follow them."

"I want them rewritten," Sakura grumbles, sitting down in the snow. "Now. This _sucks._ "

Sakura sits and stares at the cocoon, Kakashi having disappeared between one blink and the next. It should bother her more than it does. The cocoon is an ugly little thing, grey and misshapen, and she lets out a sigh.

How long will she have to wait for the butterfly to become reality?

Around her, snow falls in thick, fluffy flakes that settle on her hair, eyelashes, and shoulders. The tree her back is up against blocks the wind, though Sakura isn't sure she needs it.

This is just a dream after all. A weird, long one, but still—just a dream.

Eventually, Sakura loses track of how much time she spends staring at the cocoon, falling into a half-aware reverie while snowflakes finer than spun-sugar desserts tumble from the violet sky.

It could be minutes, or it could be years, that she remains where she is and stares at the cocoon.

Patience, Sakura learns, is a boring game to learn.

Kakashi does not come back to talk to her. Ino doesn't show up either, though Sakura hadn't expected her to. Kakashi seems to come and go as he pleases, while Ino tends to stay in one place and Sakura is the one that leaves her.

Sakura mulls over this, and the differences between them, as she waits for a butterfly that might never come. After all, how many butterflies can survive in the depths of winter? Even though this winter, in her dreams, isn't cold at all, she doubts it is the sort of thing that butterflies can survive.

She yawns, covering her mouth with one hand and shaking snow piled up inches high off her shoulders.

The cocoon twitches and Sakura freezes. Barely daring to breath, she fixes her eyes on the cocoon, and waits.

It takes a long time (or almost no time at all; time, in dreams, is an ephemeral thing) for it to twitch again. Sakura resists the urge to reach out and touch it, to urge it into action faster.

This is a test of patience, Kakashi had told her, so she has to be patient.

But it is hard. Even with the practice in waiting—and it had been practice, she realizes now—it's still hard. Every shiver and tiny movement of the cocoon feels like a hard won victory.

Sakura doesn't know, doesn't care, how long she waits before the first rip in the cocoon shows up. After that, things seem to go faster, or maybe she's just gotten used to the waiting, painful as it is.

When the butterfly finally unfurls its wings, it is a delicate creature of sugar and ice, all done in whites and bright, pale blues. It's unreal.

(Of course it is! Sakura scolds herself for being silly: this is a dream, nothing's real.)

The butterfly's wings begin to move and it takes flight, swirling around her head in drunken patterns before settling on her wrist.

"There's nothing to eat there," she tells it, remembering Chouji telling her once that butterflies fed through their feet.

It still takes it's time, inspecting her hand and then moving up her wrist and arm to stop at her elbow. Sakura doesn't touch the wings, just keeps an eye on it, and wonders what she's supposed to do now.

When the butterfly takes off, flying again around her head, three times over, before pumping its wings and making for… well, she doesn't know where it is making for, but Sakura gets up, shakes the snow off herself and follows.

Tracking a butterfly is fairly high up there on the list of most ridiculous things she's ever done but Sakura finds that she doesn't really care. The snow underfoot is soft and cool, but not wet nor cold. Her slippers are more than enough to manage it. Wind tugs at her hair and throws the butterfly off course in equal measure but the butterfly always keeps going and arranging her hair isn't very important in her own dream.

(She certainly doesn't care if it is a mess.)

As she walks, stopping when the butterfly decides to rest on her head, and then moving on when it chooses to do the same, Sakura tries to guess where they are going.

There is nothing but a featureless, snow covered landscape in front of them. Now and then she looks behind, and for a long while, she can see her tree in the distance until, when she checks, it is gone.

Sakura keeps walking and stops checking behind her. The featureless past is unnerving. At least the future, though it had as little definition as behind her, has the butterfly. Fixing her eyes on it, Sakura puts one foot in front of the other over and over again until the world has narrowed to nothing but the flutter and flap of the butterfly's wings.

She loses track of time—right up until she walks face first into a tree.

Ino bursts out laughing, her voice like silver bells as it cuts through the snow-muffled silence.

"Shut up, Pig," Sakura says, rubbing her forehead and blinking hard. "I guess this must be the place, huh?"

"I guess that depends on your definition of 'the place'," Ino muses as the butterfly alights on her fingers. Ino holds the butterfly up to her hair where it shimmers in a swirling wave of turquoise sparkles before turning into a hair clip. "It's certainly not my idea of one. Too much white. Boring."

"I'm not the one that decorated this place," Sakura objects. "I mean, it's my dream, so this just sort of happened."

Ino gives her a pitying look. "Nothing _just happens_ in dreams," she says. "You might want to start paying attention to what you are trying to tell yourself."

"Oh yeah?" Sakura asks challengingly. "What am I trying to tell myself?"

"Don't look to me to do your homework," Ino retorts. "I've never been into helping you there."

Sakura rolls her eyes. "You could give me a hint, you know—all I see is snow and every now and then there's you or Kakashi. If this is a message, it's a weird one."

That earns her a shrug from Ino. "Maybe think about why it's weird," Ino suggests. "It's not my dream and I'm just a figment of your imagination so I'm not much help here."

Sakura huffs and sits down. "If you're such a figment, how come you know more than I do?"

"Obviously," Ino says, "I know exactly what you know; only I'm aware of it. I guess I should be flattered that you think so highly of me but, oh right: figment."

"You're really obnoxious for a piece of my subconscious."

"Says the person with a secondary personality layer. You were _born_ to be obnoxious on some level. Just because you've strangled and stifled that part of you doesn't mean it's not there."

Sakura waves off that very good point, contemplates the fact that she's arguing with herself, and reaches out to touch the butterfly clip. Ino obligingly tilts her head into the touch. The butterfly feels cool and smooth under her hands, but with a current that tingles and pulses running through it.

"What is this?"

"A hair clip, duh."

"Shut up," she says absently, still touching it. "It's more than that. Can't you feel the energy in it?"

Ino shrugs. "It's your show, Forehead."

"I really hate that name," Sakura says, meeting Ino's eyes and letting her hand fall away from the clip. "If you're part of me, how are you using it?"

"You don't hate it that much," Ino says off-handedly. "I mean, you do, but not when _I_ say it. That's different. Same reason you call the real me 'Pig'. Love."

"Kakashi said that love is about going through the motions," Sakura says. "Was that part of me too?"

"Was it?" Ino parrots back.

"I know," Sakura snaps. "You're not doing my homework for me. Consider it a rhetorical question to myself, if you must."

"Well," Ino says, "do you think that?"

"No. Maybe?" Sakura rubs the bridge of her nose. "I don't know. Yes, sometimes. Love is about feelings but sometimes the way you show those feelings is all in every day ritual, so you _could_ say that love is partly about going through the motions."

"Why?"

"Because if you don't go through them," Sakura says slowly, "you don't care enough to. The only danger to that is when the motions become more important than the feelings and eventually even the motions get hollowed out."

Ino tilts her head, the butterfly clip gleaming. "Are your motions all hollowed out?"

Sakura takes her time in answering that, looking around the sparse whiteness of her dream world, then back at Ino. Even Ino, usually so colourful, is paler here. No bright purples or blacks, she wears a kimono of pure white, with silver threads running through it in complicated, abstract patterns. Her sky blue eyes are several shades lighter—almost grey.

"I guess they must be," Sakura says, subdued. "I don't understand why they would be though."

"Follow the flower," Ino suggests.

"…What flower?"

Ino reaches behind her to pull, from somewhere, though Sakura doesn't see where anything could be kept, a glass jar with a floating rose in it. As a stark contrast to the rest of the world, the rose is bright, scarlet and the stem, and thorns, are a vibrant green.

"Oh god," Sakura says, almost horrified. "How many fairytales do I have to go through?"

"As many as it takes," Ino says primly, offering her the jar.

Grumbling, Sakura takes the jar. "It's Kakashi's turn next, right?"

Ino just smiles and wiggles her fingers at her in farewell.

"Figures," Sakura mutters and glowers at the rose. A gust of wind smacks her in the face with wet snow. Spluttering, Sakura waves goodbye to Ino, and starts walking. Since she doesn't know where she's going, she picks a direction at random.

Disturbingly, as time collapses around her and she loses track of how far she's come again, the rose begins losing its petals one by one.

She knows this story. There's a timeline she's got to adhere to.

The problem is, she's not sure what she's going to have to do when she gets where she's going.

It all comes down to love, she supposes, as another red petal falls. Oddly, when the petals hit the bottom of the jar, they melt into it. The base is turning red and is slowly warming to her touch. Sakura likes neither fact.

Snow starts falling thickly around her, blurring vision, until Sakura feels like she's making no progress at all. She keeps walking, and as she does so, thinks about what it means that she's holding the rose.

Does that mean she's the beast of the story? Who will be the one to save her, if that's the case?

(She doesn't really want to be saved by anyone, truthfully.)

An altitonant growl startles her out of her contemplation and Sakura looks around, realizing that she's come to be walking with a walls of dark stone stretching into the distance and sky on her left.

The growl comes from on top of the wall.

The worst part is, she recognizes it.

She has time enough to be glad that she's not the beast before Kakashi lands on the ground in front of her and lunges for the jar that contains the rose. Sakura stumbles backwards, feet slippery on the snow due to her slippers and unpreparedness.

Who was attacked in their own dreams!?

"Hey!" she protests, scrambling to her feet and rolling away as Kakashi, his face screwed up in an animalistic grimace, lunges for her again. His hands claw at the air as she protects the rose. "Cut that out! You're just a part of me! So _behave_."

He doesn't.

Sakura, limited by holding the jar with the rose in it, and she doesn't dare to put it down, not when it is what he wants, backs away hastily as he comes after her again. The wall above them looms ominously.

Sakura doesn't care. It's a wall.

And she's been walking, running, up walls since she was twelve and barely capable of anything else. So once she's got enough distance from Kakashi, she leaps over him and then dashes up the wall, chakra holding her just as she wants it to.

Behind her, she can hear the howling of the beast.

The rose jar seems heavier and warmer. Soon, she thinks, it will begin to burn her hands. Sakura still doesn't know what to do about it. Upon reaching the top of the wall, Sakura peers back behind her, searching for a sign of Kakashi and finding nothing.

It's disturbing that Kakashi is so off-kilter now. He hadn't been before. Irritating and infuriating and sometimes charming, yes, but not like a monster. Sakura takes a deep breath, lets it out, and turns to see what's on the other side of the wall.

She gasps and the wind snatches away the sound of it before it even reaches her ears.

On the other side of the wall is a fairytale castle right out of every story she'd ever read. There is the lake with the picture-perfect gazebo. She can see fish leaping at artistic intervals from here. Over there are the stables and pure-white, winged horses roam a padlock, their manes and tails trailing in a gentle breeze. The castle itself is a glittering, airy affair in pink marble and gold-veined white stones, with turrets and a moat that holds sparkling water. The grass is a perfect, lush green. She knows it would be excellent for walking on with bare feet.

Every childhood dream she's ever had about being a princess stares back at her.

"Oh god," Sakura says, her voice strangled. She can't decide if she's delighted or horrified that this is a place in her dreams.

Tearing her eyes away from it, long enough to look back just once more at the blowing snow and empty landscape behind her, Sakura makes up her mind.

She leaps off the wall. At the landing, she rolls and then laughs as the roll turns into a sprawl on the grass. Sunlight pours down on her, warm and comforting but not too hot: just right.

Sakura only moves when the heat of the jar becomes too hot to stay still. Reluctantly, she climbs to her feet and makes her way towards the castle. If there's going to be any answers here, it'll be there, because that's where they would have been, had she been six again.

The inside of the castle is breathtaking—and empty.

Wandering halls bedecked in exquisite tapestries and glorious paintings and more wealth than she's ever seen in one place, Sakura doesn't find a single person.

That takes some of the excitement out of her sails. Where is the kindly old king? The queen, who holds the true power of the kingdom and radiates joy? Where is the little prince with his wooden sword? And the servants who sing as they work—where are they?

Sakura looks for them and doesn't find anything.

She winds up in the throne room and gapes at the first thing that's deeply out of place in the setting. The thrones are crystal, with elegant blue cushions and backs. On each of them rests a crown.

But Sakura doesn't look at the crowns. Her eyes, and the rest of her attention, instead, go to the wall behind the thrones, where the banner of the country usually hangs.

Instead, there hangs a shower curtain. The shower curtain is covered with pastel butterflies. It'd be cute in the right bathroom.

But not in a throne room.

Sakura bites her lip, feeling irrationally sulky and petulant at this shattering of her dreams. If the curtain exists, she knows it must be important, but it ruins the beauty of her castle and that, on a level deeper than she wants to admit exists, offends her.

A pulse of heat from the rose jar gets her moving again. Stepping past the thrones, though she spares a longing glance at the exquisite crowns, Sakura reaches out with one hand to touch the shower curtain.

The butterflies on it shiver, shimmering in the light reflected off the crystal thrones.

"Go away," Kakashi says from behind the curtain, his voice a painful rumble.

Her hand freezes.

Sakura takes a deep breath and asks, "Why?"

There's a strange popping, stretching sound that makes her stomach do a back-flip of revulsion. She's heard worse, she knows she has, but in the dream right here and now, like the castle is perfect and so is her horror of something unseen.

Kakashi takes his sweet time and says nothing.

"Answer me," she snaps, finally. "I don't know what's going on, and you seem to. All I know is that there's this jar that Ino gave me and it's starting to _burn_ and soon there'll be no more petals left—"

"Good," he sighs.

" _No_ ," Sakura says flatly. " _Not good_. Pretty much the opposite of it! Bad, even! I know the story just as well as I suspect you do, so I don't know why you think it'd be good, _Beast_."

She sets the jar on the floor by her feet. It's getting too hot to handle, even if she _can_ heal any burns easily. But they're still not fun to get.

"Just go away," Kakashi says. "This isn't anything to do with you."

"It's _my_ dream," she points out. "That makes it, by definition, something to do with me."

He growls.

Sakura rolls her eyes, steels her nerves, and yanks back the shower curtain in one quick, vicious, tug.

Behind the curtain are two royal cloaks laying in puddles of blood. Sakura stares at the remnants of the queen's dress (it was always canary yellow) and at the king's sword, the blade broken in half, for a long time before looking up. The blood has been tracked across crystal tiles that lead up to a huge ornate bathtub, with clawed feet, and no shower.

She doesn't know why there's a bathtub in her perfect throne room. It doesn't make sense. But then, in her dreams, she's never killed the king and queen either. She worries for the little prince and purposefully doesn't look for his wooden sword; it would break her heart to find it.

Where she stands, all she can see is long silvery hair spilling over the edge of the tub. It's Kakashi's hair colour, but she's never seen it so very _long_. Sakura takes a step closer, then another one, careful not to step in the blood of the slain royalty.

Squeamish is something she's not but this shattering of her childhood dreams hurts brutally in ways that she doesn't want to make worse—stepping around blood is the only thing she can do right now.

Six feet away from the tub a barrier keeps her from going any further. Sakura pushes on it, feeling it flex under her hand, and knows she could break it if she really wanted to.

Then her eyes land on Kakashi and she knows, abruptly, what the horrific stretching, popping noises had been.

Kakashi's face is drawn and pale, one eye socket an empty hollow—no Uchiha eye, not in her dreams—the other a mere slit, closed as if to ward of pain. His face looks okay. No injuries, except for the eye, but even that is an old injury, not a new one.

Though Sakura isn't certain if 'injury' is the right word to use while looking at him.

He is in the tub, she realizes, because the tub is all that holds him together. The beast has fallen part and now every muscle, every sinew and tendon and vein, shift and pull and _move_ unnaturally, like they have minds of their own. He has no skin from the neck down and she's glad, despite all her experience, that her dream world has hidden the smell from her.

His bones—she can't tell where most of them are. A femur leans up against the far side of the bathtub, she spots some his spine twisted at an obscene angle. A few of his ribs protrude from the mess of muscle that used to be a chest.

"Oh god," she says.

He shifts to the sound of more popping and stretching and levels a glare at her.

"Sorry," Sakura babbles, "sorry. I just—it's this—this is my dream, so it's got to be my fault but I don't know how."

She pulls herself together, trying to pull up chakra to heal him. Anything.

Her chakra fizzles in her veins and doesn't move.

"Don't be sorry," Kakashi says grimly. "This is my fault. I screwed up."

Sakura opens her mouth to deny it, then realizes he might very well have, somehow, and tries to look expectant instead of panicked. (Her chakra isn't working! That's terrible!)

"How?" she asks, once it's clear that he's not going to say anything else without prompting.

"I messed with the order of things," he explains. "This castle was supposed to be the grand finale, not the middle. I just… wanted to rescue you from everything."

"I don't need to be rescued," she says, touched anyway. He sounds so defeated. "It looks like I'm supposed to be the one to rescue you anyway. I'd give you a long, sweet kiss to wake you up but you're already awake. And… holding you in my arms isn't going to be a thing while you're like that."

It just… isn't.

Kakashi opens his mouth to say something, frowns, and tries again. "Damn," he mutters. "I should have known."

"Known what?" Sakura asks.

"I can't rescue you," Kakashi says, sounding pained. "I wanted to, I tried, but this is the punishment. Soon I'll lose my humanity in this set and be nothing but the beast. You need to get out of here, leave the rose jar, and get to Ino."

"Ino's next," Sakura agrees, "but that's not solving the story at all."

"I know." He grimaces in pain. "I fucked it up. There's no solution here because it's out of order. You need to go. The tree, my tree, is in the apple orchard."

"It's a pear tree," she says doubtfully.

"Yes," he agrees. "It's still in the apple orchard. You know how to get there. Go. Grab the next item and get over the wall. This place is getting unstable."

Unwillingly, Sakura drops her eyes to the dead king and queen. "Unstable," she says softly, a lump in her throat. "That's one word for it."

"Go," Kakashi insists, with new urgency in his voice. "I can't—"

Sakura watches in horror as he convulses, spilling guts and worse over the side of the tub, and then begins to change into a beast once more.

" _Go_ ," he growls, humanity fading rapidly from his voice.

She hesitates a moment longer then, turns, and bolts. On her way past the thrones, she grabs the crowns, feeling like they're needed, and they turn into little charm bracelets that she slides over her wrists as she continues to run.

The apple orchard. She knows where that is.

Behind her, a monster growls.

Sakura doesn't look back. Tears sting her eyelids.


End file.
